The Black Fleet and The Borg
by Estaban Maturin
Summary: Intel Squadran 9 Code named The Black Fleet are testing a new drive when they find out about a future Borg attack.


STAR TREK

The Black Fleet  
The Borg  
By: Estaban Maturin

From: Commodore L. R. Fernandez  
CLASSIFIED  
SD:24345

To: Admiral W.A Fernandez (Ret.)  
Austin, TX North America  
Earth, Sol 00119579512

Well Bro. I finally made it. All those years of telling me stories of your exploits when I was a ensign and a lieutenant paid off. I made Commodore and have a fleet of my own (sort of). You of course know my ship the USS Indefatigable A Sovereign class ship but also under my command is the Galaxy class ship USS Centauri and two Defiant class ships the USS Surprise and the USS Doris (I don't know were that one came from). That's the ships assigned to me as regulars , I also have up to six others vessels detached to me "for special needs" and open orders to commander any Star Fleet Vessel (regardless of who is captain) if the need arises.

I shouldn't tell you but we are a BLACK PROJECT fleet (I've dubbed us, " The Black Fleet" as tongue in cheek to the Klingons) and don't exist on records, the ships are all assigned elsewhere, one is even assigned to deepspace exploration (makes it hard to explain sometimes). Like the time we... I'll start from the beginning.

CH1

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away... I thought about the "book" I was reading to my niece and nephews, an earth classic from before space travel, this copy of a copy of a copy probably only resembled the original somewhat, but it gave the kids a chance to hear their uncle's voice and hear a classic at the same time. Wars... I thought of what humans have gone through, first Romulan , then Klingon, many others and wrap it up with the Dominion. With the peace then the Tholinan Empire doing its thing I have as much work as in war, just no one can know about it. What I would give for a good straight forward war... or a nice rebellion.

Just then the door chimes, "come" and my first officer enters "The DX has reported in sir" she said. "Thank-you I will be there in a moment" I responded. She went back to the bridge (a good solid commander she is, I'm never worried about letting her command the ship while I take care of the fleet).

On the bridge the DX was on screen falling in easy formation with the other four ships. "Status" I asked as the commander vacated the center seat, "the DX reports ready for trials and we have received the last know location of Voyager" She ran it off as she sat down on my right and checked her monitor, "the rest of the fleet reports nominal"

"Open a channel to the DX, What is its name again?" "USS Sacajawea" she answered. I just looked, OK going to be one of those, I thought "Channel open" came from tactical a moment later. This is Commodore Fernandez, are ya'll ready to go over there?" "Just waiting on the order sir." came the reply, "energize the prototype, and prepare for a short jump to see how it works" I ordered.

My science officer gave me that "Vulcan Look of Disapproval" you know he glanced at me then went back to his readings, a moment later he reported "Sir there is a field forming around us" "Us?" I asked, "Around the whole fleet" , "DX abort test" I ordered, "We are trying to but the controls are fused!" the captain yelled at me "the whole thing has formed a direct short to the warp core and is on runaway!" just then reality jumped and the ship went dark.

"Status" I asked as I got off the deck, as the different departments reported in I took stock in the fact that damage was minimum, the power circuits were all resetting themselves and all was coming back to normal, "what about the other ships?", "The Doris reports ready, the Centauri needs time to stabilize their inertia dampeners, and the Surprise and the Sacajawea have not answered yet." the commander answered. "Keep trying to raise them, navigation were are we, Tactical, report."(Bad habit asking questions faster then your people can answer)

Helm, "still looking, Sir" Tactical, "Short range clear, no long range yet." The Commander, "The Surprise has reported minor damage and will be fully functional shortly, the DX has reported a loss of power in the core and estimates two hours for restorations."

The part of command I hate most... Waiting, no really I hate to wait for an answer, I can wait days for a victim, I mean a suspect, but when my people can't tell me how we are or were we are I go NUTS. Here I am antsing in my seat when Tactical jumps, "Sir, we have a group of ships coming in, ETA two hours at present speed." Finally something to do!

The DX manages its repairs in one hour, forty minutes, so when the group of ships (Three to be precise) get in range we are a functional battle group of five. "Sir, I am receiving a hail from the lead ship, our translators can't make heads or tails of it." "OK start the process for a new contact." "Aye, sir... we are receiving a continuous transmission from the lead ship, It looks like some kind of math sir. The computer has got a translation program in place now sir." "Put it on." I answered.

"This is the OMS Lionheart... Surrender and prepare to be boarded."

I have never seen a math program build a complex translator program before, but.. I have seen petty dictators and bossy people before (every time I look in the mirror) the first part shocked me the second one did not. "Open a channel." "Open sir." "This is Commodore Lupe R Fernandez of the Federation Star Ship Indefatigable, Please respond." "The responses is audio only sir" "put it on speakers" "This is Group War Leader TRDJT of the OIYAE system, You are not an Ally or Enemy that makes you lawful prize, Surrender and your crews will not be hurt, your ships, though large are not as powerful, will lose in a fight, if you will surrender your sword Commodore you will save your crew." quietly to the commander, "Red Alert" Then to the Group War Leader, "I'm sorry no dice."

"Sir, he has closed the channel and I am reading a power build-up in the Lionheart, he is firing" said my tactical officer. "Evasive" I commanded, it hit us and the whole ship shook and kept shaking. (you need something pretty big to keep shaking a Sovereign class ship, I mean its pretty darn big it self and the Lionheart is only three hundred meters more or less) Then the science officer started, "The bolt shows signs of sentient it is looking for a weakness in our shields." The shaking stopped, "The bolt is spent, sir" he finished. I felt like saying "duh" but didn't. Tactical said, "He is firing again" and again we shook

but this time the shields did not stop it completely. "This bolt has learned from the last one sir, it has penetrated on a seam in the shield and is searching the hull" My science officer reported not including the expected "fascinating" "To all ships heading 120 mark 320 at warp eight, GO!" I commanded

"He is firing again! The Surprise is intercepting the bolt, it went through her shields like they weren't there, Commodore I read an overload in her warp core... she has successfully ejected it" Lock tractor beam on her and lets go!"

CH2

When your hurtling along at warp eight with your tail between your legs, don't you wish StarFleet would let you just shoot anybody that causes you grief. My pony was caring double and the Sacajawea was not built for speed, sooo we could not do that for long but apparently Warleader TRDJT could not run that fast at all. when we had breathing room I slowed us down to warp three then ordered a meeting of the captains and science officers.

"Thank-you all for coming, please give ship status." I said, The Commander answered, "The Indefatigable is at 100 as of now, very minor damage from the transport and subsequent attack." Captain Jameston said, "The Centauri is ready for action, Sir." Captain McClain of the Doris said, "We are ready sir" Captain Saib said, " The Sacajawea as a ship is ready for action, sir" Then Captain Charbonneua said quietly, "The Suprise has lost her warp core, her impulse and auxiliary reactors are undamaged, all other damage is non-critical and minor."

"OK, Thank-you" I said then asked, "Captain Saib, how about the Teseract Device?" Saib gave his science officer the question. The Verpine stood up and started talking its translator barely keeping up, "The device it self has very little damage but its power feeds are totally destroyed, for the burn-out damage and phaser damage I say 36 hours and another 12 for recalabration." "How does the Teseract Device work?" I asked. The Verpine really warmed to the subject at that, "The Teseract folds space to create a shortcut from point A to Point B. Therefore you don't have to travel the long route, a straight line from point A to B. You fold the fabric of space till A and B are together and cross over.

In the laboratory to teser an item the more mass the more energy but obviously the equation reverses at some point and needs less energy to move more mass, when we tied it to the warp engine it was trying to move more mass then expected, on the scale of a small planet. We had only planed on traveling two light years and we still have not found out were we are, or which way we went. As a whole I report this device to be untrustworthy and not a viable means of transportation. I recommend we abandon the project." it just stopped dead it did not taper off or slow down. "well we respect your advice but maybe we should use it one more time, just to get home." I said. The Verpine was about to respond when a loud tone emitted from the vicinity of my science officer.

He picked up his pad and started reading it, "Fascinating" I calmly asked him what was fascinating and he looked up, I could see the surprise in his face, he did not know he spoke out loud. "Sir I have identified the program that built the translation program." "And?" I asked "It has both Human and Vulcan math in it but it was built on Borg base." "Assimilated Human and Vulcans built that program?" I asked. "No sir, it is not a Borg program it is a Human / Vulcan program... its like they used a Borg program as a starting point" he answered, "some of this math is beyond anything I have ever seen." "So you are saying that, that ship is Federation?" The Commander asked. "Not anything our computer recognized." said Captain Jameston and everyone agreed. "That reminds me," I asked, "does anyone happen to know were we are?" Again everyone agreed no idea. We talked about a few other things like the new weapon and defense against it, none, and what to do with the Surprise, "We should strip her of all useable equipment and scuttle her" suggested Captain McClain, and "We must install a new warp core in her if the Tesseract device is to work the same all ships need to be the same." stated the Verpine The meeting broke up with no other revalations and the officers all beamed back to their ships.

In my ready room around 20:00 hours that evening Lieutenant Fairman from astrometrics requested a minute of time he came to the point, "I have found us sir." I said, "Good, so were are we." Then Fairman did not want to answer so I had to insist. "We are right were we were, sir... just not when we were." He was not joking or at all happy with his answer, "When are we?" I asked. "Around the twenty-eighth century, about four hundred years in the future, sir." he said "Ohh Crap!" was my answer. "The stars had moved in the four centuries and that is why we had trouble finding our location" he explained, "And there was no Federation beacons or transmissions of any sort."

CH3

As I entered the bridge I was snapping orders, "Set course for Earth, inform the other ships take the Surprise back in tow and engage warp six, Tactical I want yellow alert on all ships start watching for Borg or any signs of Star Fleet operations." the ensign at navigation said, "Sir, space between here and Earth shows signs of erosions between subspace and normal space, signs of high warp damage all over this sector." I said, "plot the best course possible." My science officer started adjusting his equipment in order to closer look at the phenomena. Picard had found it and very few have seen it since.

Three days later we reached visual range of earth with out one peep of Federation Comm traffic and a lot of wreck and ruin from ships to planets and outposts. 'They gathered them selves together in a great war in a place that is called in Hebrew Har-Magedon.' that quote kept going though my mind could not remember from were though. When Earth came on the screen no one could believe it. both science and tactical stations ran diagnostic test on the equipment, that great blue and green marble was gone in its place was an irregular shape orb, brown and black with gray highlights. My science officer reported, "No signs of life, sir, not animal or vegetable life, no humans, nothing sir and the atmosphere will not support life either." There were great piles of debris in orbit and the moon was now a ring around the planet, shattered in the great battle between Borg and Earth. I did not even hit orbit, "If Earth looks like this then what about Vulcan? plot a course and inform the fleet, engage." The name the black fleet was roaming around in my mind now. We need to know when this happened and how, but most important we need to know how to stop it!

A day at warp six and we were at Vulcan but again to late, T'Kuht had fallen on Vulcan and again signs of a great battle were everywhere. Suddenly tactical said, "Sir, we are receiving a ship identifier from the edge of the system, its the Doris" "She is suppose to be in formation." I said and he replied, "She is sir and she is also on the edge of the system." OOOK "Release the Surprise and set course for the Doris. All ships please stand by while we check something out. engage"

There she was in an orbit around the sun hiding in the black of space, zero emissions until our standard check tripped the auto response, and here she is. "away team assemble in the main transporter room" I ordered, The Commander stood up and lead the small group to the aft turbolift. That is the sad part of rank, no away teams for me.

The Commander downloaded the log to us and reported the ships status, "The warp engine is non-operational the impulse and auxiliary power reactors are shut down and will take some time to restart, there is nobody aboard they all have abandon ship." "They have all been picked up by the starship USS Hopeful." said my science officer from were he was reading the last entries of the log, "They used all the antimatter in their engine to destabilize T'Kuht then made their way here to meet the Hopeful but there was not time to transfer antimatter to the Doris so they abandon her with hopes of retrieval later." "OK," I said, "All this is classified tell no one understood? You too Commander. Computer encrypt the Doris log entries, my encryption random number 546" There were ayes all over the bridge and from the Doris.

"Commander I want that warp core, start on it and I will send an engineering team over immediately" She answered that they would get right on it.

When we got back to the fleet, the engineers started on installing the warp core in the Surprise. The Captains and first officers all met for a big meeting. "I called you here for options and suggestions." I started the meeting. Captain Saib put out, "We can get home, my science officer has calculated the course and settings." "Good!" I responded. Then Captain McClain asked, "What was the Doris doing out there?" I looked him in the eye and said, "just sitting there. This information I am going to give you is CLASSIFIED and will not be repeated, is that understood?" "Yes Sirs" all around "By the Doris's logs the Borg attack in mass just three weeks after our return, we met them again near Wolf 359 but they won, the Enterprise, Sovereign, Indefatigable, Defiant, Surprise, Excalaber, Centauri, and many others were completely destroyed. The Doris was Disabled and then ignored over half the crew was killed including you Captain McClain, your first officer," I looked at him, "commander Williams was in command he put the ship together enough to fly and went to Earth it was burning at that time and our science officer estimates for nearly one hundred years after, till it consumed all the oxygen. Then the Doris went to Vulcan being the next 'logical' place and found the Borg had already ASSIMILATED it, most of the inhabitancy were Borg and the rest were on there way. Commander Williams decided that the planet was a total loss calculating were his anti-mater would destabilize T'Kuht, came in under cloak and placed all he had there, when he set it off he apparently took out one of the last cubes in Federation space." Captain Jameston asked, "In Federation space?" I answered, "Yes there were forty-two cubes and a third stayed in Federation space and the rest headed for Romulan and Klingon space. They did not succeed but they did destroy Star Fleet and the Federation, and since the Romulans and Klingons or Borg have not taken over this area I would guess that they met the same success there also."

"I guess the question here is how do we stop it?" I asked. Captain McClain said, "Under StarFleet general order number one, Should we stop it?" Captain Charbonneua answered, "It is our moral duty." The Commander said, "I think we are splitting hairs the real question is, Are we, under temporal law, allowed to go back now that we know the future?" "That is not the issue here, WE ARE GOING BACK, the issue is how do we stop forty-two Borg cubes?" I cut to the chase.

CH4

We had to return to the location that we started from, but with the Suprise repaired we made good time. The OMS Lionheart was a concern but we had no other choose, we had made a plan for meeting him and hope we did not need it. As we came close to the quadrants three ships appeared on our long-range scanners on an intercepted course. "The Lionheart and her consorts closing at warp six, sir" the tactical officer reported. "To the fleet, attack sequence alpha." I said. The ships adjusted there position and the commander said, "Red Alert, Battle Stations!" The alarms sounded the battle lighting came on, reports came in from all decks, finally the commander turned to me and said, "Your ship is ready for action sir." "Thank-you" was my standard reply. The first time she had done that I almost said it was not **_my_** ship, now I know what she means. As we approached the Lionheart I said, "Open hailing frequencies." Tactical said, "open sir." "OMS Lionheart, This is the USS Indefatigable" (If he is going to identify by ship then I will to, When in Rome...) "We are not prize and we will defend ourselves if you force us to, This is your only warning!" His only answer was, "Sorry no dice."

The Indefatigable was set for the Lionheart, The Centauri was on the Consort on the right, and The Doris was going to the left, The Suprise was hanging back guarding The Sacajawea which was not very heavily armed. "Never mind maneuvers, just go straight at them!" I said to the helm. "All ships Fire on my mark." we drew closer, my science officer said, "They are about to fire." and I said, "Mark" The ship shuddered under us as she fired everything she had, phasers and Quantum torpedoes... His shields never slowed them down they were set to stop a simi-sentient bolt not a torpedo or coherent light. The Lionheart took it on the nose and took it hard, That was the plan all three ships fired at once not giving anyone a chance to remodulate the shields. The consort on the left exploded, the one on the right was drifting dead, The Lionheart was still there but she was venting atmosphere from front and back, no lights were lit in the whole ship. We won but no cheering was happening. "Stand down from red alert and resume course." I said woodenly.

When we reached the quadrant the Verpine started to set the Teserract device giving a running commentary all the way. Then he said "energizing", reality went dark then light back up, a controlled trip was much better and the fleet did not suffer near as much. Navigation, Tactical, and the Science stations and said, "We made it back sir"

To bad that was the easy part.

CH5

We went out to a point that intercepts the course the Borg must travel and I had a classified meeting with the engineers placing them all under secrecy with pain and death as punishment and a miracle as reward. When I was a young officer I worked under cover in the Orion Fleet as an engineer, They had a way to double the output of a warp engine that no one else knows, yeah it damages the engine but not permanently and not very badly, I was sworn to secrecy in which I have never broke, till now, I taught them and just like I did, they protested that either it would not work or blow up the ship depending on there natural leaning. It is one of those things that does not work in a simulator or a computer simulation only in real life. The final meetings and plans were done, ships were prepared and now we wait.

When the warp signatures finally appeared we were all relived not worried, "All ships RED ALERT! Prepare tactical sequence Fernandez one."

The Indefatigable took the lead position with Sacajawea shielded behind her, The Surprise was on my left and the Doris on the right. I haven't forgot the Centauri, she was beside the Sacajawea with last minute support. "Your ship is ready for action Sir" Came a voice from my right. "Engineering reports ready to activate the augmentation, and the other ships report ready, Sir." came from tactical. "Hail the Borg." I said. "Open Sir." was the immediate reply. "This is Commodore Lupe R Fernandez of the Federation Star Ship Indefatigable, Return from were you came or WE will be forced to stop you." The reply was totally expected, "WE ARE BORG THIS QUADERANT WILL BE ASIMULATED, YOU ARE IRELLEVENT"

"Cut transmission, open tactical to Sacajawea," I said. "Done Sir," "Captain Saib, power up the weapon." "It will be at full power in five minutes, overload in six." was the reply.

As forty-two Borg cubes closed with us was there fear? As I look back I think I can safely say YES lots and lots, so much could go wrong some of it so wrong we would never even know, or it may go too right and we would be hoisted on our own Petered. We were using an experimental weapon that had one shot before it ate itself, no tryouts no do overs, one shot for the whole quadrant. No pressure right? Who am I kidding we are going to die! One Cube took out forty starships at Wolf 359. The first jolt of a ranging shot stopped the panic attack that gripped me. "Shields held sir." They should the engines were putting out 200 and it was all going into shields. "Captain Saib reports the weapon is ready sir." said the commander, "The target is in range." said tactical a moment later. "Fire the weapon!" I commanded.

The Sacajawea streaked forward in the perfect Picard maneuver, a tactical maneuver involving a high warp burst and deceleration (You look like you are in two places at once, they fire on the wrong one) then you hit them with your weapon of choice. The Sacajawea stopped in the middle of the Borg. The field formed around the Borg fleet and they vanished. "Stand down from red alert." I commanded then, "Set course for Starbase 4, and go, I will be in my ready room, commander you have the Conn."

EPILOG

... the experiment was a failure and the USS Sacajawea was lossed, all hands were recovered in time, before the experimental device overloaded the warp engine and destroyed the ship." I reported, "The Teseract device may work with small packages and short distance but not for Starships, Voyager will have to find her own way home." "message end, Computer please transmit message to StarFleet Command, route label Indigo in code 343." The computer beeped in acknowledgment

Now lets see were did I leave off on that letter? "Well all is back to normal, no one knows how close we came to IT this time, everyone that knows the truth is sworn to secrecy the logs were changed to mach the report. There are some things that the strategic command don't need to know... can you imagine that used as a weapon? The only thing I haven't figured out is how to explain the Doris and Surprise haveing the same warp core..."

What, you what to know what happen to the Borg? Well I did too and the Verpine and my science officer worked it out. The Borg, all forty-two of them were Teseract to the far side of the Delta quadrant and back in time around a millennia ago. Give or take a few decimal points.

So how are things with you?


End file.
